News 

21 Oct 2009

Sales Development in the Global Financial Crisis

By Rob Balmer, CEO, Executive Central Group Pty Ltd

In our conversations with CEOs and senior executives over the past few months, an obvious topic of conversation has been how they are faring in these uncertain times.  There are many leadership challenges presenting themselves that simply didn’t exist when times were more buoyant.  Indeed, many of these CEOs and senior executives are seeing some of these challenges for the first time, having never experienced anything other than the seemingly endless economic growth of the past fifteen years and the associated demand this created for goods and services right through the Australian economy.

Yet, even in this environment, where it could be strongly argued the need for leadership development and support has never been greater, we have observed that organisations seem to have an even greater development priority – their sales teams!  Some executives suggest that they feel their sales teams have slipped into the mode of “order takers” in the good times and have neglected some of the more proactive sales activities that ideally should have been occuring.  Some have suggested their sales teams have done well individually, but there hasn’t been much teamwork and sharing of knowledge and best practice.  Others are searching for ways to optimise what they believe are already excellent sales teams to take them to another level of performance.  And there are many other challenges that we hear about. 

Unsurprisingly, in times such as these, driving the top line has become a critical priority for many organisations.  As such, a logical consideration is how to best develop and support sales organisations to help them succeed.  Equally unsurprising is the need to provide this development and support in as cost effective a manner as possible without compromising on its overall effectiveness.

In our experience, when looking at improving the effectiveness of their sales organisations, executive and human resources leaders immediately look at their salespeople and try to find some kind of training course that will teach them to sell more effectively.  Certainly, there is a place for sales skill training and building an understanding of the professional selling process.  However, how effective the usual corporate style training programs have been in actually delivering superior sales performance is highly questionable.

We have found that more experienced salespeople get easily frustrated with (and can become highly cynical of) this type of training.  They see it as some “guru” coming in and teaching them how to “suck eggs”.  We’ve also found that customers can become very cynical when they find a salesperson following the standard routine of questioning to uncover “pain points” or “explicit needs”.  There is a perception that this type of approach is purely questioning for the benefit of the salesperson, not for the benefit of the customer, and as such, there is an immediate lack of trust.

We are certainly not saying that salespeople shouldn’t continually learn more about their profession or take a questioning approach to selling, but when it comes to sales effectiveness within organisations, or let’s call it developing successful “sales cultures”, development programs need to do more than just teach sales skills to the salespeople.  They need to revitalise the salesforce as the champions of customer need.  They need to develop everyone who is in any way involved in the sales process.  They must provide a clear understanding of all aspects of professional selling and the roles different people and functional groups play in it. 

In particular, groups such as executive leadership teams, sales leaders and managers, sales call centres, technical support engineers, pre-sales support teams, marketing teams, industry specialist groups, credit departments and value engineering teams can have a huge impact on the selling process and must have a clear understanding of the drivers of sales success.  Without this, even the best sales team in the world will struggle to succeed.

A successful sales development program must address all of these areas and focus on the practical implementation of new strategies, skills and behaviours in “real life” customer situations.  Without an application to “real life”, little of what is taught in traditional sales training is implemented and sustained for the long term.

In consideration of these important factors, Executive Central has developed the ADAPTOR® Professional Sales System.  Based on our years of professional selling experience and our work with executives and their organisations, ADAPTOR® is a coaching-based sales culture development process that explores three critical aspects of professional selling. 

Firstly, it attempts to simplify and demystify the process of professional consultative selling, to ensure everyone involved in the sales process can understand their role and share a common sales language.  It has a particular emphasis on helping salespeople avoid the most common inhibitors to professional sales success, from both a process and a style perspective.

Secondly, it explores the “emotional intelligence” aspect of professional sales, helping salespeople to become more self-aware, better understand the differing operating and buying styles of customer, and to better “ADAPT” their own approach to build trust with the customer and ultimately achieve superior results.  This extends to an examination of where successful salespeople spend their time and how they prioritise their activities.

Finally, and most importantly, the system deals with a dimension that often is forgotten – the dimension of the Customer!  Sales professionals are challenged to develop strategies to assist them in selling the “real life” services they offer to the “real life” clients they are dealing with.  The customer’s buying process and business environment is a central theme in this process.  This, along with “real life” leadership, support and coaching from their leaders is what ensures new skills and behaviours are actually implemented in the market and sustained for the long term.  

In our experience, it is only by addressing all three of these aspects of professional selling that an organisation can truly create a sales culture.

The process is typically delivered in a combination of group, pair and invidual coaching sessions over an extended period.  These are fully tailored to meet the specific needs and budget of the client organisation and to ensure a far greater return on investment is delivered through actual implementation of new learning and sustained results. 

For more information on how ADAPTOR® may be able to assist the development of your organisation’s sales culture, please contact us via email us at info@executivecentral.com.au or call us on 1300 737 495.  

- Copyright 2009, Executive Central Group Pty Ltd -

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